Groundhog Day at Indonesia Open, Dreev Wins

On Thursday Alexey Dreev pocketed the $20,000 first prize at the Indonesia Open. The Russian grandmaster finished a full point clear of a group of eight grandmasters which included Alexander Moiseenko and Nigel Short. Antoaneta Stefanova won the women's category, followed by Hoang Thanh Trang, Elisabeth Pähtz and local stars WGM Irene Karisma Sukandar and WIM Medina Warda Aulia. Indonesian IM Farid Firman Syah finished as the top junior.

The third Indonesia Open was held from 9-18 October at the Sahid Jaya Hotel in Jakarta. It was a fairly strong (and long!) open, with Alexander Moiseenko, Nigel Short, Axey Dreev, Eduardo Iturrizaga, Surya Ganguly, Ivan Sokolov, Ivan Ivanisevic, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son and Reinier Vazquez Izarga as the 2600+ GMs. The event was an 11-round Swiss.

The Serbian GM Ivan Ivanisevic was the only player to start with 4/4, but then he lost to Alexey Dreev in round 5. It's nice to see a Volga/Benko Gambit every now and then; Black seemed to be doing fine out of the opening.

Not many chess players like double rounds, but tournament organizers keep on including them in their program, usually for logistical reasons. One player who seems to have trouble getting up early is Alexander Moiseenko. For his game against Dreev, the Ukrainian grandmaster overstepped the 30-minute default period by 7 minutes, according to Nigel Short on Twitter.

And so Dreev easily moved to 5.5/6. Ivanisevic, who recovered well with a win against Hoang Thanh Trang, was half a point behind. In the afternoon, Dreev drew with Ganguly but an over-aggressive Ivanisevic went down against Sandro Mareco of Argentina, whose queen's bishop played a key role.

Helped with good theoretical knowledge of a specific Grünfeld line, a fresh Moiseenko easily won against Laylo Darwin of the Philippines.

Nigel Short's win in this round was even easier.

In round 8, three of the four top boards ended in draws. Dreev kept his half-point lead, and Moiseenko joined the group behind him:

When no move has been played between two players, they can be paired again in a Swiss event. And so last Wednesday was Groundhog Day, as Nigel Short put it, for Dreev and Moiseenko. The two GMs were paired against eachother – again, with the same colours, in the same tournament.

Bill Murray Alexander Moiseenko obviously arrived in time for this one, and the game ended in a draw after 85 moves:

Elisabeth Pähtz was one of many players who managed to hold Short (or "Uncle Nigel", as she called him earlier this year) to a draw:

In the penultimate round, Dreev made another important move towards tournament victory. He beat Vietnamese IM Nguyen Duc Hoa as Black in an Exchange Slav – never easy!

Moiseenko crushed and even checkmated Surya Ganguly:

With one round to go, Dreev was on 8/10, Moiseenko on 7.5/10 and Ganguly, Mareco and Gopal on 7/10. It wasn't a big surprise that Dreev and Gopal drew quickly - they chose a theoretical line from the Grünfeld that leads to an equal ending:

Nigel Short managed to finish in the group behind the winner as he beat Moiseenko in the last round: